


Tokyo Runner

by Estrea



Category: C-ute, Hello! Project, Morning Musume.
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dark, Alternate Universe - Police, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Crime Scenes, Cyberpunk, Gen, Psychic Abilities
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-03-04
Updated: 2013-03-15
Packaged: 2017-12-04 07:00:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 18,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/707883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Estrea/pseuds/Estrea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set in a hypothetical future in the late 21st century, people with psychic abilities have been emerging as a recognized minority in the world. Classed as Telepaths with varying degrees of Ability, integration of Ability Users into general society has been a rocky process. In metropolitan Tokyo 2097 A.D, Psych Crime Unit was set up over a decade ago to deal with the rise in Ability-related crime by drafting Telepaths of their own and training them to deal with unconventional cases beyond the capabilities of the regular police force. Starring members of Morning Musume as part of the newly re-structured Psych Special Operations Force, the elite arm of Psych Crime, and members of the OG in various cameo roles.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. No One Sleeps In Tokyo

_4, 3, 2, 1..._  
  
The heavy bass thumped loudly in her ears, the noise-cancelling headphones sealing the world away from her. Not so much her away from the world though, but it did filter out the white noise.   
  
The world was vivid in the night, swirling neons and pinpricks of natural light hidden far above the pollution. Sharp in contrast, her vision pulsed in time to the rapid, migraine-inducing tempo of the song blasting through her headphones. She was going to go deaf before she was 30 at this rate, but she didn't care.   
  
There were other ways to hear.  
  
"So you can be my shining star tonight~" She sang softly to herself, working her jaw as if she were chewing gum. She wasn't. She wished she was though. The buzz in her ears was from something more than the blaring music from her headphones. She was getting closer to her target.  
  
Targets. A different pulse extremely close to the first one she had been tracking all evening. A lesser empath might have missed it entirely, but she was close enough, sensitive enough, to notice the slight blip in frequency. Her sneakers crunched on loose gravel as she altered course, going down a different side alley than the original route she had been following. It was better than walking straight into a confrontation with 2 crackheads doped up to the gills with the latest new drug. What did they call it again? Speed? No, that was last year's hit.  
  
Whatever. She had to do her job. The music in her headphones changed again, altering from the mind-numbing dance tracks she had been listening to on the hunt to something slower, more wistful. She never had to put a finger to the next button. It was as if her player picked up on her subconscious thoughts and played something that fit her mood. Given the strength of her abilities, it wasn't completely far fetched. Especially with something that has been with her for years. Just as she has gotten used to the quirks of her player (the Play button only works if you press in a certain way, volume controls are stuck and only luck could help you jiggle them on a good day), so had the player come to terms with her. Most electronics didn't work right around people with strong Ability. It was a miracle this one had stuck with her for longer than a year and not broken down entirely.  
  
She tasted fear in the air, but she was sure she wasn't quite close enough to be able to sense it off regular Class Two Ability users. So it was true that the new drug amped up their psych abilities. Interesting. She would have to file that in tonight's report, confirm the unconfirmed street rumours about the drug's effect. The department hadn't been able to get a hold on a sample thus far, which was fairly unusual. It showed an uncanny control over the distribution of the product, and tonight's case was their best lead yet. If she got lucky, she might have more than a couple of junkies to haul in. If she got hold of a sample of the drug for the lab heads to tear apart, maybe she could wrangle for a few days off. They hadn't let her go since they transferred her to the Psych Crimes Special Forces in Tokyo weeks ago. The capital sure was different from the provinces. There was always something going on.  
  
There was an ugly ripple in the mindspace ahead, and she steeled herself, shoring up her mental shields on instinct as her mental feelers reached out cautiously. There was violence ahead, the air was heavy with it, and her gut churned as both her nose and mind scented the reeking stench of an ugly death. Shock and fear and desperation. She focused, tuning the extraneous input out with the help of her training as well as the screaming vocals in her headphones. She got a lot of flack for wearing those out on field ops, even more for acting alone all the time, but she was the youngest Spec Ops member with a certified class Seven on overall Ability, though if you narrowed it down to pure offensive capability she could probably rank a high Eight or a low Nine. That made her almost too valuable to be deployed on the field for ordinary cases. Eight was the minimum rank for Enforcer status, the ticket to solo work, since it was normally considered mandatory that the lower classes work in pairs. Once you hit level Ten, you were basically untouchable. Not that many people ever did. It took her almost 3 years to rise from Six to Seven, and that was considered exceptionally fast. Every level above Class Five took years of training to achieve, and only specialized agents took that much effort. Even then, Fives and Sixes were the bulk of the empath-capable force. Only the skilled and talented went further, or the really determined.   
  
She turned a corner, then resisted the urge to gag. A homeless man (woman? thing?) lay gutted in a pile of cardboard sheets roughly assembled to form some kind of shelter. There were no flies yet on the seeping wounds, so this was fresh. So fresh that the edges were practically clean.  
  
 _Vibro-blade._  She had barely time to register the thought when a pre-cog vision kicked in, the same blade used to gut the poor homeless person jabbing into her kidneys as the illusion fizzled around the laughing madman while she was leaned over examining the body of the murdered street person. Abruptly she recalled the blip of a second person with the first on her radar, how similar they had been...  
  
"Synchro?" She said aloud even as her training kicked into gear, reacting in full self-defence mode, her wide area search tightening into the immediate area while she _pushed_  with her mind. Push was an understatement. Imagine a vice-like grip on everything with a psychic trail in her immediate vicinity, then add spikes on the inside of that grip. All kill was overkill with her, her old instructor used to say. She used to explode dummy psychic models in the early stages of her training whenever she got agitated. It took a while (a few years) before they deemed her safe to be let out against actual people.  
  
Someone screamed. It might or might not have been the voices in her headphones. Her vision hazed, blurring dangerously as it reconfigured to re-process her visual input of the alley. It was a basic illusion even Class Ones could use, though Ones could only avert mildly curious eyes at best. To hide one person from sight without a trace took at least a Five, or a Four with training and an aptitude for the art.   
  
 _Or, a couple of class Two junkies on synchro._  She added dryly. Something else to go into the report. If they could blind a class Seven like her even temporarily, those drugs must be something serious. A pair of Twos working in synch normally could approximate the power level of a Three or a Four, but not enough to hide from her normal search mode. If they could slip under her radar, it was something approaching a Class Six ability.  And that was not a good thing. At least it was something she could break though, once she was aware of it.  
  
Although she had never heard of people without training working in synch. It had to be specially taught, although in some cases natural synchronization did occur, usually among highly compatible persons, like identical twins. Rare, but not impossible. She focused sharply, body and mind both in ready positions.   
  
A skinhead with a vibro-knife was crouched a few feet away from her. He was bleeding from the eyes and ears, and he was screaming something as he stared up at her. _Oops, did I squeeze too hard?_  Her lips curved into a smirk, though her voice was professional as she said.  
  
"Drop the knife. You are under arrest for suspected drug peddling and murder. Any resistance will be countered with extreme prejudice, and will count against you in court."  
  
Even as she spoke she scanned the surroundings for the second person. She could only see the one perp, but she was certain there was a second culprit. She had touched the guy's mind briefly in her crushing attack earlier, and he had to have a major migraine on top of the nausea from the backlash of a severed mind-link from the synch.   
  
The cornered man howled, the blood streaming from his orifices looking a lot like tribal war paint as he lunged at her. His surface thoughts were the chaos of the truly psychotic, and she recoiled with a certain disgust as she swerved to avoid the clumsy strike, her hand snaking out like a serpent to lock his wrist and elbow the old-fashioned way, forcing the perp to the ground. There was no way she was going to dip her mind into his to lock him down psychically. Not only was it disgusting to sort through drug-addled thoughts, she couldn't risk being caught by the still-missing second suspect while she was busy in someone else's mind. Just because she  _had_  Ability didn't mean she had to use it for everything. That was what her first combat instructor had told her, right before he had tossed her onto her back with a judo flip after first warding against her initial psychic intrusion. She had taken it very personally, and henceforth always took care to spend some time honing her physical abilities on top of her mental ones.  
  
Even as she disarmed her captive and reached for her cuffs, a tingle ran through her senses, and she barely had time to react before her suspect's face literally exploded in front of her, splattering her face and front with gore. She lashed out mentally from instinct, her inner bloodhound, as she liked to call it, latching onto the withdrawing psychic whiplash from the attack and chasing after the originator. She could taste the panic from the attacker, probably the second person she had sensed earlier, as he realized that she had caught on to his mental trail. He tried to shake her off, but she was not to be deterred. Her persistence on the chase was legendary even back when she was still a trainee in the provinces. You could beat her blue and bloody and she would still not let go. They still told that story back at the academy, to her embarrassment the last time she went back to visit.  
  
And then, suddenly, nothing. She felt the sudden rush as she almost sank her mental jaws onto the fleeing psychic imprint, but the constantly mutating chaos of Mindspace suddenly went hollow as if everything in the vicinity was sucked inwards, and it nearly tore her pursuing consciousness in half as she snapped back to her body to protect herself from the backlash. She threw up over her headless suspect when she was back in her body, looked at the mess on her lap, then threw up again.  
  
She must have lost time in between, because she could hear wailing sirens through her now very broken headphones, which were still stubbornly playing a last tune even as one side dangled helplessly away from her head. Damn, she liked that pair of headphones!   
  
Weakly shoving the headless corpse to one side, she crawled away from the mess of blood and brain and tried desperately not to shake like a leaf. Violence was one thing, but the shock of nearly losing her mind from that powerful...whatever it was...shook her. Her hands would not stop trembling, and she had to ball them into fists on the grimy alley floor to hide it.   
  
It took precious minutes before she could even stand again. By then, normal cops had already secured the area, and at least half a dozen guns were trained on her. She resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Norms didn't like psychs like her, but they made demands of her department every time they had a hard case to solve anyway. Then again, she surmised they had a good reason this time to be pointing guns at her. She did look like a pretty gory mess, and there was not one, but two dead bodies in her general vicinity.  
  
"Hands up where we can see them!" The lead cop's voice boomed through his fancy helmet. Bubbleheads, her department called the new breed of street cops. With the intensification of Psych crime in recent years, state department had successfully lobbied for basic protective gear for their people, the norms who had no natural wards against psychic influences. The helmets were good against petty Ability users up to Two (or a weak Three), but were about as useful as pretty plastic in the face of a class Seven like her. Not that she was going to advertise that. They didn't like her already, she didn't want to give them a reason to shoot first and apologize later.  
  
"I'm from Psych Ops, working on a case. Don't shoot, I'm reaching for my ID." She said slowly and clearly, moving very very cautiously so as not to excite any itchy trigger fingers. It was hard to get a clear read of their intentions with their helmets in the way, and the lingering wooziness from her psychic backlash earlier was affecting her ability to read in any case. She could barely pull herself together to send in a telepathic call to HQ in this state, though her distress signal should have warned whoever it was on nest duty. She could only hope that one of her own would come for her before things got stickier.  
  
She could almost hear the mental gnash of their jaws the moment she mentioned which department she was from, and she could guess that they were thinking something along the lines of "damn spooks" or something entirely worse. Probably worse, considering how she was painted in gore at the moment. Not the most flattering look for anyone.  
  
The lead Bubblehead gingerly took her spattered ID from her bloody fingers once she had gotten it out, and she was proud that she did not shake even once. Pride kept her from swaying on her feet, and she squared her jaw defiantly even with powerful halogen lamps blinding her physical vision. If pushed, she would see with her mind, exhaustion be damned. Her survival instincts were strong enough for that.  
  
"Special Investigator Sayashi. You look a little young for the job." The voice was thick with suspicion as he eyed her contemptuously. Sayashi shrugged. Almost everyone in her line was young. Ability surfaced early in some, but most of it showed during puberty, and Psych Ops always needed new people. They didn't care if you were 13 or 30. There was never enough good candidates, and it was crucial to snap up powerful Ability users before someone unscrupulous got to them first. Once found, the strong ones like her could never really be free. She was ok with that though. She had a job for life if she didn't screw up too spectacularly. But her life belonged to the state. To the nation. It would never be her own, but there were worse fates.  
  
"You can call my department for verification." She kept her tone neutral, not wanting to antagonize the guy with the big gun. She could feel the blood starting to coagulate on her, and it felt disgusting. She really needed a shower, but only if these norms would let her go. It was going to take her  _forever_  to get the gore out of her hair.  
  
She had never been more grateful to hear the powerful whine of anti-grav engines, but what really calmed her was the steady presence of a pair of familiar minds. Her shoulders relaxed, and she saw a couple of the Bubbles twitch, their guns locked at her chest. Geez, jumpy much?  
  
"What appears to be the problem, officer?" A cheerful voice cut through the edgy standoff. A tall figure dressed in outrageous style seemed to materialize out of nowhere, and Sayashi resisted the urge to snort. A simple blind to turn their attention while she slipped through the lines and onto the scene, but it looked as if she had just teleported in to the untrained eye. Still, it effectively drew half the guns pointed at her towards the newcomer, and if this had really come down to a fight, they would be able to take down the whole lot between the two of them. Not that it would, not today. They  _were_  on the same side.  
  
"Who the hell are you?" Lead Bubblehead growled, one fist still clenched around Sayashi's ID. The newcomer waved nonchalantly, tutting disapprovingly as she took in the crime scene.  
  
"Oh, don't mind me. Psych Ops, Ikuta at your service. I'm here to retrieve one of our agents on a distress call logged in about 15 minutes ago. It's on file if you feel the need to request it." Ikuta turned to regard Sayashi with a wry look.  
  
 _"You look like shit."_  
  
 _"You should see the other guy."_  Sayashi quipped, their mental conversation hidden from the cops. Ikuta eyed the headless corpse lying a few feet away, grimacing at the sight as her nose twitched. The stench  _was_  getting pretty bad.  
  
"Our department will be sending in a team to aid in on-site investigation here. I've already placed the call." Ikuta told the lead cop, who stiffened noticeably.  
  
"This is our jurisdiction."  
  
"This  _was_  our case." She pointed at the headless man. " _That_ used to be a lead. We will be aiding with your investigations. Rest assured, Officer Morita, we _will_ share information. We want to close the case too."  
  
The man jerked visibly at the use of his name. There was no name tag on his uniform anywhere, so the only way Ikuta could have known was, well, by pulling directly from his mind.  
  
 _"That was mean, Eripon."_  Sayashi laughed mentally as her fellow agent escorted her from the area to where their ride was waiting. Ikuta grinned.  
  
"He irritated me." She raised her voice a little louder.   
  
"And yes, I know I'm a damn spook. That's what they pay me to be!"  
  
The cursing behind them redoubled in frequency.


	2. Don't Stand So Close

 

 

_"Sayashi, come for debriefing once you get back."_

 

The curt summons hit her the moment she stepped onto the waiting flyer, piloted by her best friend, Suzuki Kanon, who gave her a dirty look at her appearance. She winced, and her two colleagues winced also, having caught the edges of that telepathic blast.

 

"I guess I have no time to shower..." The young officer whined ruefully, wrinkling her nose as she sat down at the back. Kanon winced again.

 

"Riho-chan, try not to get any more blood on the seats, please."

 

"That any of yours, Riho?" Eripon carefully sat on the opposite site of her bloodstained colleague. Riho shook her head.

 

"Nah, that's all from when the guy's head blew up in front of me. Might have ended up in a coma myself if I had been in his head at the time though." She breathed out a long sigh, carefully rearranging her thoughts behind mental shields. Debriefing was going to need a lot of concentration and clarity on her part.

 

"His head blew up? Isn't that illegal?" Kanon brought the flyer up skilfully, rising rapidly to cruise level as their ride joined the flashing mid-air lanes where other civilian vehicles shot past at barely within speed limits. Riho idly picked at the blood underneath her nails as she replied.

 

"The combat use of Telepaths was banned ever since the last U.S. war in Afghanistan where the first specialized Psych Combat unit was deployed by the Americans to track and eliminate the insurgents in their mountain hideouts. The initial run was...too successful. Leaked footage by a guerilla journalist led to public outcry over the perceived brutality of Psych Combat and international outrage over the flagrant breach of the Geneva Convention. This led to the drawing up of the Fifth Geneva Convention regarding the use of Telepaths in war as well as the codification of acceptable humanitarian boundaries in the exercise of psychic Ability in society as underlined in the Accords of Prague signed by all attending nations in 2079."

 

"You know, Riho, this is why people think you're a freak. How the hell do you even remember all these things?" Eripon was staring disbelievingly at her sometimes-partner. Riho shrugged.

 

"We went through the same history lessons in Basic, Eripon."

 

"And I  _know_  the laws. They kind of pound it into us during training. But who remembers all the historical details leading up to them?" Eripon shook her head. "Whatever, Ace. You're still the same freak I remember from the academy at least."

 

"Hey!" Riho protested. Just because she liked knowing those details didn't mean she was a freak. She pouted. She had finally been reunited with her batch-mates from the Academy here in Tokyo, but she barely got any time with them outside from work and more work. Still, it was good to see familiar faces and touch familiar minds. Especially minds disciplined enough to shield from the accidental projection of errant emotions. This was why Riho wore her headphones whenever she went out into the city. Normal people unwittingly broadcasted their fears and hopes and all other intense feelings into Mindspace, and a sensitive could easily go nuts in a densely packed metropolis like Tokyo, with the caterwauling of millions of minds united in a discordant maelstrom of psychic fury. They were all taught to shield since the very first training session, but Riho found an acceptable shortcut to make things easier for herself.  The music drowned out distant psychic noise, and allowed her to follow specific psychic trails without having to divide her attention between shielding and extending her mental senses. She could still go about her business without her headphones, but she quite liked listening to music anyway, so it was irritating that she would have to find a replacement again.

 

"Guys." Kanon interrupted, idly giving the middle finger to someone who cut into their lane as they swerved through downtown traffic. "I know you two actually love each other, so hug and make up already."

 

"After she gets a shower, maybe." Eripon eyed Riho warily, and the ace grinned, pretending to lean over to touch her pristine partner. "Oi! Riho! Hands off!"

 

"Don't make me hose you two down." Kanon paused. "Actually I probably should hose Riho-chan down along with my poor flyer. You're making a mess on my seats, Riho-chan!"

 

"It wasn't my fault!" Riho sulked. Eripon laughed at her, until the ace threw a glob of grey gloop at her face to shut her up. The expression on Eripon's face was priceless as the leftover brain matter slid down her cheek. It was a good thing that they reached HQ before the two actually started fighting. Kanon took the flyer down in a steep descent so quickly that both agents had to clutch on to the handrails for dear life as their stomachs rose up to their throats. Kanon allowed herself a smug smirk. There were always ways to make peace between her quarrelsome comrades!

 

In the end, Eripon scooted off to wash her face, and Riho did in fact get that hose-down from her best friend to remove the worst of the blood and gore. She was dripping wet and tracking water into the building, her hair was an unequivocal mess, and she vaguely resembled a drowned chicken, but at least she didn't look like a psychotic murderer any more. As she passed by reception, Iikubo Haruna who was on desk duty lowered her (completely unnecessary) glasses and eyed the bedraggled ace.

 

"I didn't know it was raining outside."

 

"It wasn't." Riho sighed. "Long story."

 

The cheerful aide waved her by and told her that she was expected in briefing room 3, along with the warning that "Michishige-san hasn't slept in 2 days". Riho twitched. Being debriefed by her direct superior (who wasn't even in the same power grade as her) wasn't going to be a fun experience. Especially not when a certain Michishige Sayumi was on short sleep and running fully on coffee and other adrenaline boosters.

 

The hallways were practically deserted. There weren't many of them to begin with, overworked and understaffed as they were. Riho knew that Haruna was not only on desk duty but also keyed into their external alert net, and it was probably her who picked up on the distress signal earlier. All of them ran double or even triple duty and pulled ridiculously long shifts whenever a case landed in their laps, as it had since last week's club incident where a bunch of hip young things had all suddenly gone into a coma after a particularly wild party. At the same time. The regular cops had had to call their unit in for assistance, however grudgingly. After all, some of the revellers were the sons and daughters of influential politicians, and there was immense pressure from the top to crack the case.

 

As it turned out, that wasn't even the first case of mass collapse, just the most high profile. The norms had been keeping it to themselves, jealously guarding the details of the case while only resorting to hired Ability consultants not directly affiliated to their section. Departmental rivalry was still alive and kicking even this close to the end of the 21st century. Riho had little hope that it would ever cease. Tensions were at their highest ever since the media got whiff of the case two days ago, and there was a lot of simmering suspicion and anger at Ability users in general as conspiracy theories flew around in the absence of information. Belatedly, Riho remembered that Michishige-san had been engaged in public appearances since yesterday to assuage the concerns of the citizenry and to give a highly edited account of the particulars of the case. That wasn't going to put her in a good mood on top of all the busywork they had been doing to catch up with the data sent in by their normal compatriots. Half their department was spread out over the city for the case, and the other half was either on standby at base or else catching whatever shut-eye they could in the lounge. Everyone practically lived on station this entire week. Riho herself hadn't seen her own bed in three days, crashing on the cots in the staff room every time she had a spare moment.

 

 Pausing in front of the door of briefing room 3, Riho sent a questioning mental tendril into the room -- their equivalent of a knock in Psych Ops. The door clicked open automatically. Michishige might only be a class Five, but she had a knack for telekinetics and aural projection. She was made Captain of the division following Niigaki's promotion to Enforcer last spring, but most of her capabilities lay more on the organizational and public relations aspect of her office, and she left the field work to her more than capable operatives. Riho stepped in quietly, shrugging off her ruined jacket and tossing her wrecked headphones into the waste basket as she did. She would need to burn her entire outfit when she went home to change. If she was allowed to go home at all.

 

Michishige barely spared her a glance, occupied as she was currently with a video call with a bureaucratic type while her hands busied themselves with arranging a couple of disordered case files arrayed before her. Her voice was smooth and persuasive, and her face a mask of polite charm as she fended off the increasingly shrill demands from the higher ups with professional ease. Only Riho, who actually was in the same room as her, could pick up the edges of irritation around her superior officer in Mindspace. The younger girl had to stifle a snigger when she picked up the less than complementary mental remarks the catty older officer was making in her head. 

 

When the call ended, Michishige's face immediately switched from a pleasant smile to a dark scowl, though it brightened again visibly when her eyes landed on her favourite new toy. Riho squirmed in her soaked sneakers under the scrutiny. She was suddenly uncomfortably aware that she was only wearing a white shirt and jeans, with matching black underwear beneath it, and the soaking Kanon-chan had given her earlier was making her choice of lingerie painfully visible under the nearly translucent white of her shirt. The young operative blushed, snapping to attention and saluting on instinct.

 

"Ma'am."

 

"Sayashi." Michishige all but purred. Riho tightened her mental shields involuntarily. She had heard rumours about her superior officer, and she didn't want to risk leaking thoughts of ANY kind to her. She might be a class Seven to Michishige's Five, but subtlety and experience counted a lot more than strength at times. 

 

"Sit down. Is that blood on your shirt?" The command was soft but compelling, another part of the older woman's knack. She could make you do things without you realizing it wasn't your own idea. Riho heard that Michishige had had a stint in Intelligence for a couple of years, and they valued different things in Intel. Cleverness and subtlety were valued over raw force, and appointing Michishige as the new commanding officer of Psych Ops was a clever PR move by the higher ups at a time when Ability-related crime was sparking tensions between the regular police force and the Psych division. It helped that she was pretty too, and...Riho blanked her mind abruptly, narrowing her eyes at the smiling Michishige. The older woman didn't look very sorry at all.

 

"Let me see?" Riho tensed inwardly, knowing what her commanding officer was asking of her. She hated debriefings for that very reason. Debriefing sessions in Psych Ops were quite unlike that in other normal divisions. When they claim to pick your memory apart, they don't generally do it quite as literally as in Psych Ops. Opening a limited link to share basic background information was par-by-course for ordinary operations, with most of the details done the old-fashioned way by actually talking about it; but what Michishige was asking now was to literally do a deep-dive into what happened earlier. It required a more in-depth mind-link, and those always made Riho deeply uncomfortable. She was used to erecting layered barriers against all kinds of intrusion, and having to dismantle them with her own hands to let someone else in voluntarily flew against every instinct she had. She rarely let anyone into her head, even for training, and was comfortable with only a few people for synchronization. She could not help but wonder at the motives behind her superior's request, knowing full well that she was well within her rights in law to reject the dive and stick to the old fashioned way of debriefing. Was this a test of some sort?

 

Riho took a deep breath. There had been some major irregularities in the incident earlier, and everything in her training demanded that she give as much detail as possible to her commanding officer. Her own good sense also argued that an experienced ex-Intelligence officer like Michishige would probably get more out of what she saw earlier, and she could probably do with a blow-by-blow review of the particulars of the incident while it was still fresh in her mind. Gritting her teeth, Riho replied in the affirmative. Michishige looked pleased, rising from her seat and moving over to the couch by the side of the room, gesturing for Riho to sit by her. The young agent squared her shoulders and obeyed, noting almost absently how the older officer dimmed the lights with a thought and locked the doors while sending a message to Haruna on desk duty that they were not to be interrupted. Deep dives were delicate affairs, and while Riho appreciated the consideration, she nevertheless felt a shiver run up her spine as she sat down next to her superior, and it wasn't because of the cold. It was no secret that Michishige was unusually fascinated by the young ace, and Riho wasn't sure how she felt about the attention paid to her by a woman 10 years older than herself. It was sort of flattering, but she was still only 16, legally still a child in most cases, though they had rewritten some laws specifically for the recruitment and training of Ability users. It had been a controversial proposal when it had first been debated, but Parliament had pushed it through at the cost of a lot of political capital, judging it necessary to contain and manage the diffusion of Ability users. 

 

Privately, Riho felt that some of the provisions in that law drifted uncomfortably close to certain parallels with anti-Jewish legislation in prewar Nazi Germany. Eripon might have mocked her fascination with history, but Riho was of the opinion that history had a tendency to repeat itself, and that it was a good idea to arm oneself with the necessary knowledge to pre-empt certain trends. Ability users might be a protected minority in Japan, but it was also a very closely monitored minority as well, with all class Three and above legally required to undergo mandatory registration and basic training to control their abilities before being drafted to join approved institutions based on their tested specialities. Class One and Two users were not technically required to do the above, but it would be foolish to think that they were off the database. Riho no longer had any illusions of control over her own fate after being in the system for almost her whole life.

 

"Relax." Michishige murmured into her ear, shifting close enough that their thighs were touching on the couch. Riho did the inverse of what she was told -- she tensed, her mental doors clanging shut. Michishige did not seem offended by her response, in fact, the woman seemed amused by the reaction, shifting away to put a little distance between them. Riho breathed out again, slowly. She needed to stop resisting the contact.

 

  
_Open a link._  Her superior's voice whispered mentally, giving the equivalent of a polite tap on her shields. Riho cleared her mind, her breathing becoming slow and even as she closed her eyes and turned completely inward, calming and preparing herself. Remembering her training, she carefully lowered her defences, one at a time to prevent herself from having a panic attack, and then forced herself to relax while sending out a telepathic call to her superior, inviting the woman in. It made her feel acutely vulnerable, even though the briefing room was mercifully warded against psychic noise both from inside and out.

 

A joining of minds always felt uncomfortably intimate. It was different with close friends, like with Kanon-chan for example. Riho could maintain a low-level link with Kanon without even flexing her shields, that was how comfortable she was with the girl. With anyone else, she was a nervous wreck, though you wouldn't know it since she instinctively shut everyone else out of her mind like everything within was behind an Iron Curtain. 

 

Michishige Sayumi was an entirely different entity altogether. Always before, Riho could feel alien tendrils that made her freak out and cut the link off. Sayumi ( _am I on first name basis with her?_ ) slid in with barely a ripple, and Riho had the strangest sensation that the older woman was being extremely gentle with her, holding on to the link with a lover's caress. 

 

That last bit made her pulse quicken, and she almost pulled away on instinct, but training kicked in and she forced herself to settle down. Felt Sayumi's amusement again ( _you think I'm pretty?_ ), and Riho scowled back mentally, and felt the older woman respectfully pulling back in response and waiting to be guided further into Riho's mindscape.

 

  
_Further in. Follow me._  Riho's mind-self led the way, and the psychic representation of her boss tagged along behind her, looking around at the neatly ordered yet completely incomprehensible layout of Sayashi's Riho's mindscape. Polygonal shapes and twisting paths hovered and bent in upon themselves, new paths created and dissipating as they passed, approximations of the neural synapses in her brain. Everything was sharp and angular, yet cloaked with an aura of cold mystique, much like the external first impression the girl herself often projected.

 

  
_You have a beautiful mind._  Sayumi murmured, careful not to touch anything. It was a display of trust to let someone else into your mind, and she was not about to give her subordinate a reason to kick her out this soon.

 

  
_Thank you_. Sayumi felt a corresponding flush of pride and pleasure, the atmosphere in the mindscape growing just a bit warmer in reaction to the compliment. The mindscape changed subtly as Riho's mind-self touched one of the darker orbs at the side, holding out one hand to Sayumi.

 

  
_In here. Be careful._  While it was only just a memory, it was still possible to get hurt in it if one were not careful. Particularly if it was a violent one.

 

  
_Is this in Shinjuku?_  Sayumi asked as their surroundings blurred into darkness and neon lights, the edges of the vision-memory pulsing with a muted frequency as Riho evidently adjusted the volume of the music there.

 

  
_Yes, I tracked the lead from Shinagawa, and the trail went cold around Shibuya, but I was able to regain it after a few sweeps._  They followed memory-Riho's sight as she moved through the faceless hordes of people in the vision, keeping pace with the bobbing red point of the representation of memory-Riho's lead.

 

  
_You don't like norms very much, do you?_  Sayumi said as the vision carried them away from the crowds and down the first turning memory-Riho took earlier. Riho started, and the vision seemed to hiccup for a moment before running smoothly again.

 

  
_They don't have faces in your memory. You don't see them at all._  Sayumi explained. Riho grimaced, trying to control her reactions so her boss wouldn't feel every single thing she did. A difficult task, when one was already in a deep dive.

 

  
_I..._  Riho hesitated, then paused the memory.  _Here, Michishige-san. The first irregularity._

 

The moment where she had first sensed the blip, the second presence next to her initial target. It was challenging to see through the filter of one's memory, but Riho was trained to extract as much detail as she could from memory images, particularly those of her own. Sayumi was no slouch of her own either. Intelligence had their own methods.

 

  
_It's supposed to be hidden. Good job spotting it._  Sayumi said after a moment, examining the frequencies the memory had captured.  _Unusually weak, though..._

 

  
_You'll see why later._  Riho said blandly, careful not to contaminate her companion's opinion with her own drawn conclusions. They proceeded as memory-Riho discovered the dead homeless person, and then the moment of the pre-cognitive vision.

 

  
_Pause that. Rewind it, at half speed._  Sayumi ordered, and Riho obeyed, rewinding through the instant again in slow motion. Her superior appeared to be intrigued by the clarity of the pre-cog vision, and Riho could feel the older woman pacing around in deep thought.

 

  
_Did you see this?_  Sayumi pointed suddenly at a barely visible corner in the pre-cog vision. A half shuttered window, and a tiny pale face practically undetectable behind it in the gloom. The face was staring avidly at vision-Riho getting stabbed, a vindictive glee in that inhumanly pale face.

 

  
_Shit._  Riho cursed, then blushed. She hadn't noticed the first time round, being more concerned about the immediate threat of the man with the knife. Sayumi soothed her mentally.

 

_It's ok. You were trying hard not to die. That's what this session is for, to pick these things up._

 

It did not make Riho feel any better, and the young operative resolved to be more observant as the memory started up once more. Riho felt Sayumi smile at the force memory-Riho applied to break all active Ability links in the immediate area, and both operatives automatically zoomed in on the same corner where memory-Riho had not deigned to notice at first. The same face was there, but the eyes were red and running with bloody streaks down that pale face in the window. Much like the man who was in the open with memory-Riho.

 

  
_Did you intend to do that?_  Sayumi asked, referring to the bleeding. Riho shook her head. She might have exerted a good bit of force, but from what they studied about the higher brain functions and anatomy, what she did shouldn't have had such drastic effects. Maybe cause a nosebleed at most, but not so much so that they start bleeding from the eyes  _and_  ears. It had not occurred to her at that point, but her lessons were coming back now, with the benefit of hindsight and a settled environment.

 

  
_Interesting._  That was all Sayumi contributed as they watched the events unfold. When they got to the part with memory-Riho subduing the suspect before his head burst, Sayumi frowned, asking her to repeat it again, and Riho could feel the older woman counting to herself as the scene replayed again.

 

  
_The other party assumed you were going for a psychic lock and wanted to kill you along with that flunky._  Sayumi said after watching the sequence unfold a third time. Riho could feel the deadly seriousness coming off Sayumi in waves. Her commanding officer was Not Pleased. 

 

They followed Riho's subsequent mental chase in intense silence, both cataloguing any details as Riho slowed the playback of the memory to manageable levels. Mindspace was chaotic enough without everything hurtling along at breakneck pace. 

 

  
_It felt like I had gone a long way before that happened._  Riho said as the inverse explosion in Mindspace happened, swallowing nervously as the panic and terror of memory-Riho replayed as well. She was surprised when she felt the warm arms of Sayumi curl around her mind-self, reassuring her that everything was fine. That she was safe. Riho bit her lip. It was humiliating to see her memory-self throw up after the backlash, even if it was quite a normal reaction following an abruptly severed mind-link...

 

  
_A mind-link?_  Sayumi picked up on Riho's suddenly alert state.

 

  
_Yes. I can't be sure. I need to check out the scene again._  Riho said firmly. As far as she knew, one of their own was currently on-site, but the discovery of the observer in the vision meant that they had an additional avenue to investigate. 

 

  
_Let's finish this part first._  They sped through the last bit with the confrontation with the Bubbleheads, and Eripon's timely intervention. Riho suppressed a smile at Sayumi's sigh, the younger girl catching the stray thoughts of her superior over how much sweet-talking she was going to have to do to smooth over the already tense relations between their division and the regular force. As the vision wound to a close, Riho turned questioningly to her boss's mind-self, requesting permission to disengage.

 

Sayumi nodded, and Riho carefully kept the route out open as her commander slid back out with nary a ripple again. The young agent was almost sure she felt some regret when the connection closed, but she wasn't sure who it came from. Deep dives were always confusing that way.

 

Riho woke with a start back in her own body. Extended mental journeys tended to play tricks on your consciousness. As if that wasn't enough, she found herself lying in the embrace of one Michishige Sayumi, the older woman's arms wrapped possessively around her, with her halfway onto her superior's lap.

 

  
_How did that happen!?_  Riho mentally screamed, though her face flattened instinctively into a cold mask. Her heart pounded a rapid tattoo against her chest, and she was sure her breath hitched at how close Michishige's face was to hers.  _Is she going to kiss me? Wait, what?_

 

Michishige chuckled softly, and Riho wondered if her commanding officer could read her thoughts. No, that was not possible. Riho rechecked her mental shields again anyway. She definitely did  _not_  want anyone pawing through her mind. The older woman leaned in close, and Riho twitched, freezing in place as lips pressed against her forehead gently, soft fingers brushing a clammy forelock out of her eyes, before her superior finally deigned to untangle herself from her. Riho let out her held breath slowly. She wasn't sure how she felt about that. What did it mean? Did it even have to mean anything? Riho was starting to feel the beginnings of a headache at the back of her mind.

 

"Go home. Get some sleep. You're exhausted." Michishige was already facing away from her subordinate, heading towards her papers and reaching for the phone.

 

"But I need to check out the scene..." Riho protested. Michishige held up a hand.

 

"I'll forward to Fukumura what she needs to look for on-site. Get some rest, Sayashi. You're dead on your feet. Try not to fall asleep in the bathtub. I'll be expecting you back in 12 hours. You've earned that much time off with what you found."

 

Riho knew an order when she heard one. Saluting mutely, she held her pose until dismissed, then hightailed it out of the briefing room with as much dignity as she could muster. She couldn't be sure if she was still blushing, or not blushing, or...

 

Yes, it was apparent she needed some sleep before she made a complete fool of herself. Heaving a great sigh, Special Investigator Sayashi Riho trudged out of the station. Home could not come soon enough.


	3. Every Little Thing

 

_RIIIIIINNNNNGGGGG! RIIIIIINNNNNGGGGG!!!_

 

A hand twitched on top of a pillow. The lump under the blankets shifted slightly, but showed no further signs of otherwise moving. The phone continued wailing, ignored, for the next 10 minutes. Then it cut off suddenly.

 

A minute later, there was a sucking sensation in the air of the room, and the space seemed to contract in on itself. Blink, and suddenly a girl was there where no one was just a second before, crouched low in a defensive stance.

 

A stance that made sense immediately, since a muffled curse was heard under the blankets as Special Investigator Sayashi Riho lashed out instinctively at the intruder in her room. The various alarm clocks perched all over the room shattered at the same time, and the short-haired invader rolled quickly to dodge the shards of flying glass and other unidentified metal objects. 

 

"Fuck. Duu? Is that you?" Riho yawned as she rubbed sleepily at one eye, her legs still tangled with her blankets. The ace then looked around her wrecked room. "Ugh. Not again."

 

"Sayashi-san, are you awake now?" Duu, otherwise known as Kudou Haruka, emerged cautiously from behind the door she was using as a shield. The short haired officer, a year younger than Riho herself, raised a finger to her cheek, wincing as blood came away from the shallow gash there. One of the propelled objects must have grazed her.

 

"...sorry about that." Riho looked sheepish, scratching at her head as she suppressed a yawn, cracking her shoulders in an effort to work the tension out of them. Her fight or flight instinct when roused from sleep almost always came to rest on FIGHT, and it was worse if she felt any kind of psychic activity or intrusion in the vicinity before she woke. It was kind of a defensive mechanism, but it also put anyone attempting to wake her in a hazardous position.

 

"I should have remembered to 'port in at your living room. Next time." Haruka sighed. The young officer was the team's Teleport specialist, often referred to as 'Jumpers'. While Riho could teleport herself as well, it took immense concentration and a very thorough knowledge of exactly where you wanted to go, or who you wanted to teleport to. Most of the time it wasn't worth the hassle except in an emergency, but specialists like Haruka who had the knack for it found it easy to visualize and reach their targets, which made them invaluable for quick deployment. 

 

"What's the rush?" Riho pushed herself reluctantly off her bed, cringing as she stubbed her toe on what used to be a spring from one of her poor, unlamented alarm clocks. Control was a lot harder when she wasn't fully aware of what she was doing, but since she was awake now... She gathered the debris into a neat pile with a thought. It was easier than sweeping, and Riho often took advantage of her psychic talent to do things like this. Haruka jumped when another shard of glass nearly sliced her elbow on its way to join the pile, trying hard not to look impressed but failing.

 

"We have a meeting in 15 minutes."

 

"What? Wait, what time is it now?" Riho panicked, her neat pile of debris falling over into a messy heap. Haruka checked her watch.

 

"1145 hours?"

 

"Shit."

 

"Yeah. Suzuki-san sent me to fetch you."

 

Haruka watched, bemused, as her senior all but flew into the bathroom, swearing again when she smacked her knee against something. It was funny to watch the normally cool Sayashi work herself into a snit like this. To while away the time, Haruka trotted out of the room to fetch a broom. She might as well clean up the mess while waiting!

 

At precisely 1159 hours, a pair of girls appeared in the designated teleport zone at base, Riho looking a little green from the side-along Jump. It was always disconcerting to be pulled along by someone else. Actually, it was always disconcerting to Jump. It felt like one was surfing without a surfboard through Mindspace, and it was a peculiar balance between control and a lack of it. Duu never had any problems though, Riho thought sourly. The boyish younger girl seemed to thrive on Jump-navigation. It probably helped to bleed off her excess energy.

 

Kanon was waiting for them outside the teleport zone. She tutted at Riho's appearance, the three of them double-timing it to the meeting room while Kanon attempted to fix Riho's hair. Riho was trying to re-button her shirt properly when they reached the room, and the door flew open before Haruka could raise her hand to open it.

 

"In your places, everyone." Michishige, in full work mode, was busy in front of an old fashioned whiteboard. It wasn't that they couldn't afford the advanced equipment, but with sensitive machines tending to malfunction around high-level Ability users, Psych Ops had learned early on that they had to fall back on 'dumb' technology or just resort to the good old-fashioned methods like charts and maps pinned on the walls. There was also a projector in the room, practically an antique by modern standards, but lovingly maintained by their resident kid genius, a certain Sato Masaki, who was currently doodling something on her notepad. Haruka sat down next to her automatically, while Riho and Kanon took their places on the other side of the long rectangular table with Eripon and Fukumura Mizuki, who was biting her pen while frowning at her notebook.

 

"Let's do a quick recap on the facts of the case." Sayumi was all business as she cracked her pointer against the board, catching the attention of all her operatives. 

 

"We have an unknown drug X, dubbed 'Crash' by our norm counterparts, that has been making its rounds in the city. It is unsure when or where it originated, since a definite sample has yet to be obtained despite our best efforts..." Here she glanced at Eripon, who winced at the scrutiny. Her network of informants had proved to be fruitless so far, and their commanding officer moved on.

 

"From the information forwarded by our counterparts, the first recorded case of 'Crash' victims were college students at a private party. A small group of no more than 5, found with discarded syringes and pill bottles around them. It was at first assumed that they overdosed on one of the designer drugs available on the black market, and standard detox procedures were followed at the hospital they were rushed to. The victims died within 12 hours from massive haemorrhaging from the eyes, ears and nose." Riho started reflexively, remembering her own encounter with the Crash junkie in the alley. Michishige acknowledged her with a small nod, then continued.

 

"This was at first overlooked as an anomaly, and it was not until similar cases started springing up across the city that the police started to notice a trend. Always small groups of victims, usually young adults. There were always discarded syringes with trace remnants of an unidentified substance at the various scenes. No apparent connection between the groups of victims other than their age range and the apparent drug abuse, and all were generally of middle-class status. At least until that case last week that brought us into the picture."

 

"The Seiishiro club incident." Riho stated. Michishige nodded, indicating that they should look at the case files laid before them. There was a detailed bio of each victim, all 12 of them, and a short write-up on the club itself. There was a pause as everyone read through the material, digesting it at their own pace. This latest version included the autopsy reports, complete with MRI scans.

 

"Ah, the pre-motor cortex is burned out! All of them!" Masaki, lovingly dubbed Maa-chan by everyone in the division, exclaimed. 

 

"The pre-frontal cortex is scarred too." Riho pointed out various deformities on the scans. All of them were taught basic neuroscience as a helpful supplementary to their Ability, since there was a direct link between the brain and their Abilities. Those taking the medical track would go further in-depth on the inner workings of the brain, but for those who went for the law enforcement route as they did, all they could really do was identify obvious abnormalities on the scans.

 

"Other suspected Crash victims were also autopsied with the same results. Suzuki, what did Dr. Yajima have to say when you spoke with her?"

 

"There was a lot of jargon I didn't quite understand, and that's all in the full report, but the simplified version I got was that there was a massive overload of brain wave activity that raised core temperature beyond functional levels, obliterating parts of the frontal cortex. It's similar to a low-level Psych Wave attack. The banned kind."

 

"The kind that explodes heads." Riho scowled down at the report. "Like the poor bastard from the alley."

 

"That would be a high-level Psych Wave, Sayashi-san." Ishida Ayumi, one of the junior officers on the opposite side of the table, corrected on reflex. Riho shrugged, shuffling through the papers in the file distractedly as she thought about the case.

 

"That's why we got put on this case." Sayumi looked weary for a moment. "There's too much relation to a Psych-related injury, and some idiot leaked incomplete info to the mass media, so now the public is worried that we have some kind of crazy Psych killer out there burning brains. I spent the whole morning in press conferences explaining something we barely know anything about. Hopefully it'll keep them quiet for a few days." She didn't look very optimistic, but pulled herself together and looked over at Mizuki, who was fiddling with her notebook.

 

"Fukumura, I hope you have something for me."

 

Mizuki nodded, clearing her throat as she stood up, taking the floor.

 

"I was out half the night with Ayumi-chan investigating the alley in Shinjuku. Other than the psychic battle imprints Riho-chan left there, there wasn't much to track. Whatever psychic trace Suspect A had -- that's the guy with the blown up head by the way --" Mizuki taps at the photograph taped to the whiteboard.

 

"Well, whatever's left, by the time we got there it was fading fast. The strongest impressions on the immediate scene were the fear imprints from the murdered homeless person, as well as Riho-chan's usual overkill." Everyone chuckled, and Riho stuck her tongue out at them. Mizuki grinned for a moment, then turned deadly serious.

 

"There was barely any psychic trace left from Suspect A, as if it was obliterated along with his head, which shouldn't be possible. Anyway, based on the information Michishige-san sent me, Ayumi-chan and I gained entry to the second-floor of the adjacent building to find Suspect B, thankfully with his head still intact, as you can see here." Another photograph, complete with trails of dried blood from his orifices, was pinned next to that of Suspect A. Mizuki nodded at Ayumi, who stood up to continue.

 

"The psychic trace on Suspect B -- identified as Morioka Senya, a 24 year old NEET-- was a bit more distinct, but seemed to be dissipated. The wave pattern Michishige-san sent us from Sayashi-san's memory dive helped me to isolate the primary scatter zone, and we were able to find a lead."

 

Everyone held their breath as Ayumi paused to collect her thoughts. The tiny officer moved to the projector, turning it on to project a pattern everyone recognized.

 

"A Jump scar!" Haruka, the resident Jumper, identified it first. She leapt to her feet, going closer to examine the radius of the recreated pattern. "How long was this after the event? And this is scaled to size right?"

 

Ayumi checked her notes. "Fukumura-san and I arrived on-site at 2347 hours, but it wasn't until almost a half hour later when we found this lingering about three blocks away from the original site. And yes, it is scaled to size." She glanced at Riho, who was poring through the case files again.

 

"It was probably somewhere between an hour, at most an hour and a half, after Sayashi-san's recorded engagement in the alley. There were traces of Sayashi-san's psychic signature near the Jump scar, but those were very faint."

 

"Ayumi-chan picked that up. I missed it entirely." Mizuki admitted contritely. Ayumi flushed at the compliment. Riho looked up.

 

"I've fought a Jumper before. It never felt anything like this though."

 

"It's not the usual concave scar. Weird." Haruka, who was busy examining the recreation of the pattern, spoke up suddenly. "There's a double fold. And that's a pretty big scar to leave even after a whole hour. Most aren't bigger than a coin-sized pucker after the same amount of time."

 

"Ayumi-chan and I thought it was weird too." Mizuki admitted. "I sketched the scar immediately and had it reconstructed here for you guys. I tried to be as accurate as I could."

 

"We have faith in your reproduction skills, Fukumura-san. Your memory is flawless when it comes to these things." Ayumi assured her senior, and the shy 18 year old blushed faintly.

 

"Did you two try to follow the Jump?" Sayumi said suddenly, having kept silent while her operatives debated the details. Ayumi ducked her head.

 

"I tried. Maybe Duu could have done a better job, but...I'm sorry. I got a general direction, but no specifics." 

 

"You coulda have sent a telepathic call to me. I would have Jumped to you." Haruka said, looking over at Ayumi. The older girl frowned.

 

"I did. I think you were sleeping though." 

 

Haruka winced. "Eh, I remember now. I crashed in the lounge after that long-distance Jump back from Okinawa. That's right, I forgot to tell you right away, Michishige-san. It was a false alarm on the supposed Crash victim found there. Mamba bite, apparently. They found the toxin."

 

"So this is confined to Tokyo only. I'm not sure if I should be happy or not." Sayumi grumbled half to herself. "So, what direction did you get?"

 

"Northeast. I couldn't pinpoint relative distance either, but it wasn't nearby, I think. I'm sorry, it's not very helpful..."

 

Sayumi said nothing for a long moment, evidently processing through the information. Suddenly, Maa-chan piped up hesitantly.

 

"Duu...you said there's a double fold on the Jump scar?"

 

"Yup, right here. Looks kinda wrinkly, a bit squashed, really."

 

"I was thinking...could it be that someone Jumped in and then back through the same scar? Is it possible?"

 

Everyone turned to look at their resident genius. Maa-chan had a proven IQ of 184, and while she was childish and weird and occasionally temperamental, she had fits of insight that left everyone in the dust on occasion. Haruka frowned.

 

"I've never seen or heard it done. You know what, let me give it a shot now. See if I can do it."

 

Everyone automatically shifted their sight to Mindspace as Haruka closed her eyes, forehead furrowing in concentration. There was a tightening in the area, and then the girl was gone. Everyone could see the 'hole' in Mindspace that Haruka made in her wake, a hole that was already rapidly filling in and starting to coalesce into a scar like pattern, when a few seconds later there was a rushing sensation and something much like a mental pop as Haruka reappeared in the room.

 

"Whoa, what a trip." The tomboy swayed on her feet for a moment, then reached to steady herself on the table. "Didn't know it was this hard,fine-tuning my aim that much..."

 

"It's not the same." Maa-chan sounded disappointed as she examined the marks left by Haruka on the local Mindspace. "Duu, you missed!"

 

"What? Shit, I did." Haruka examined her own passage. The Jump scars were very close together, almost overlapping, but it was not the exact same opening used both times. Haruka pouted, looking very indignant. It was a matter of professional pride.

 

"We're not even sure if it's a double-Jump." Eripon pointed out reasonably, speaking up for the first time. "Riho, do you remember how it felt like?"

 

"Something was sucking me in. I had to disengage or risk ghosting." Everyone shivered at the word. 'Ghosting' was something every Ability user who projected outwards feared. It was Psych slang for when an Ability user's mental representation that was projected away from the body was cut off from returning, essentially turning the telepath into a 'ghost'. Without a tether to return to the original body, the astral projection would eventually disintegrate, and the body would be left in a vegetative state with no higher consciousness left to animate it. The official term was astral death, but some smartass called it 'ghosting', and the name had stuck.

 

"I threw up after I reconnected." Riho soldiered on with a blank face. "At first I thought it was a reaction to almost ghosting, but the review with Michishige-san gave me a fresh perspective." The ace squared her jaw.

 

"There was at least one more suspect we are unaware of, and distance-synchro was involved."

 

"Distance-synchro?!"

 

"I thought that wasn't possible?"

 

The rush of discussion overtook the room momentarily. Riho waited for them to settle down, staring stoically at her notes and resolutely avoiding any curious gazes. Kanon noticed her best friend's tension, and rested a hand on Riho's reassuringly. The ace squeezed back, grateful for the support.

 

"It's definitely possible. I've done it once before." Riho's dark scowl kept anyone from questioning her too closely, but both Haruka and Maa-chan were casting curious looks at her. Ayumi, who was next to them, seemed preoccupied with the case files, occasionally scribbling something down on her own notes.  Eripon, on Riho's other side, muttered.

 

"But you don't  _do_  synchros."

 

"Shut up, Eripon." Riho muttered back. Clearing her throat, Riho moved on.

 

"I suspect I received feedback from a snapped link. That huge suction I felt at that time might explain the size of that Jump scar. My theory is that a third party was synching with Suspect B as a conduit to simul-synch with Suspect A, and they snapped the link when the third party couldn't find a way to ditch my pursuit. I cannot think of why anyone would do this based on what we know, but it's the only thing that I can think of that explains the clues we have."

 

"Group-synching..." Sayumi said aloud. Eripon frowned. 

 

"Isn't that similar to those meditative shamanic trances?"

 

"Say, those Crash victims always come in groups. Do you think that could have a link?" Mizuki piped up as she sifted through the previous cases, her lips pursed in a thoughtful pout. 

 

"We might be on to something here." Sayumi said decisively. Her gaze swept over her unit, resting briefly on Riho. 

 

"Everyone, lunch break now. Think over what we have, then we'll go through the details again. Come back in an hour. Sayashi, you stay behind, I need a word." Everyone was filing out already, and Riho nodded at her superior, staying in her seat as the last of the junior officers left the meeting room.

 

"Sayashi."

 

"Ma'am." Riho felt her heart sink to the bottom of her entirely new pair of sneakers. She had a feeling she knew what Michishige-san was going to ask her.

 

"I've seen your files. You have never achieved functional field-synchro rates with anyone. Your highest filed synch rate was with Suzuki at 64%, enough for in-house synchro but considered too unstable for field operations. You don't have an assigned field partner for that reason. Now tell me about this distance-synchro thing you were talking about earlier."

 

Sayumi's eyes were trained with a hawk's intensity on the squirming young operative. Riho fidgeted, clenching her fists as the lights in the meeting room flickered in response to her inner tension. Sensing the rise in agitation, Sayumi relaxed her projected anger, switching to a soothing calm instead. The younger agent breathed deeply, calming herself with an effort.

 

"It was an accident."

 

Sayumi raised an eyebrow, waiting for Riho to continue. The 16 year old ground her teeth together.

 

"My synch rates are awful, as you have seen from my file. It's a shame, everyone keeps telling me, since my scores are so good everywhere else." There was just the faintest hint of sarcasm in the ace's voice. Her eyes were hooded as she stuck her hands in her pockets, ignoring the usual protocol.

 

"So they run me through a bunch of tests every year. Set me against dummy models to see what frequency worked best, then assigned random 'paths for me to synch with based on the gauged neural patterns. I think I was like a puzzle they had to solve. Year after year, different people, different tests..." Riho drifted off, her eyes focused on a distant corner of the room.

 

"It must be off the record." Sayumi's eyes never left Riho. "No traces whatsoever. I looked." The ex-Intel officer admitted. "Force of habit."

 

"Most times I don't even see who I'm synching with. Not that it really matters, since it's a mental thing after all." Riho sighed. "The lab heads thought I wasn't synching right because I didn't like other people, so they always blindfolded me when they brought in a new person. So I couldn't judge them visually, apparently. They forget that touching minds lets me know a lot more than anything my eyes could tell me."

 

"The scientists do that." Sayumi agreed. "Most of them have no Ability themselves, so they don't understand, not really."

 

"And it's a lie, you know. That Kanon-chan is my highest synch score. Well, maybe not, since whatever happened in those tests were off the record." Riho took a deep breath.

 

"I hit perfect Synchronization once in my life."

 

Sayumi let out a surprised whoosh of breath. Perfect synchronization was something thought to be impossible. No matter how compatible two different people were, how skilled they were at aligning their mental patterns with each other, it did not change the fact that they were two separate beings. There was a controversial attempt in South Korea to achieve perfect synchronization a few years back with the use of clones specially raised for that purpose, but it hadn't worked out. The best known stable synch rate was achieved by a pair of natural identical twins, peaking at 95%. No higher. Perfect Synchronization was a myth, and Sayumi voiced that, still staring at the downcast Riho.

 

"Well, it lasted 3 minutes and 14 seconds, according to the lab notes. Then the other party broke it off, and refused to synch again." Riho's face was blank now. "They made us though. The rate hovered around the low 20s. They wrote off the 100% as a fluke."

 

"And the distance-synchro...?" Sayumi asked quietly. Riho was quiet for a long moment.

 

"Something happened. Something...bad. I got scared. I reached out, and touched her mind on accident. She wasn't fully awake, so she let me do it."

 

"The harbour incident 2 years ago." Sayumi whispered. "Your files...you were injured and comatose for a month. They didn't put you back on active duty until six months later."

 

"Yes." Riho fell silent. Sayumi waited for a minute or two, then asked gently.

 

"How bad was it?"

 

"Bad." Riho left it at that. Her eyes were haunted. Sayumi sucked in a breath, knowing she would get no more out of her subordinate about this. So she shifted topics slightly.

 

"So distance-synchro is possible."

 

Riho paused a beat, then nodded. "Yes."

 

"Do you blame her?" Sayumi asked suddenly. Riho tensed, a nerve in her cheek jumping.

 

"No."  _I blame myself._

 

"Good. You're dismissed, Sayashi. Get something to eat."

 

"Ma'am." Riho saluted perfunctorily, turning on her heel and leaving with military precision. Behind her, Michishige Sayumi rubbed at her temples. Personnel issues were the last thing she wanted to deal with right now, with such a tricky case on their hands at the moment.

 

Sayashi Riho, their ace in the hole.  _Works better alone_ , her predecessor had written in her handover notes.  _Careful handling required._  Sayumi sighed. How did they expect her to deal with this when there was obviously so much information carefully concealed from her?

 

No matter, she supposed. A dark twinkle danced in the ex-Intel officer's eye. Secrets were her speciality, after all! Michishige Sayumi would never back down from such a challenge.

 

"Yosh! I'll definitely solve this too!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- NEET stands for Not in Education, Employment or Training. It describes a class of young adults past the age of compulsory education who are neither studying, working or seeking work, or being involved in any work-related activities.


	4. What You Need

 

_"Look who's here, one of the brats from Spec Ops."_

 

_"Coming here all alone, some nerve!"_

 

_"Oi, shuddap guys, that's one of the elite!"_

 

_"Tsch, that's just a little kid. Don't know what the higher ups were thinking, making up a Special Force with only girls. God knows they're just a bunch of pretty faces for PR!"_

 

_"Dude, minimum requirement is class Four to even sniff around that area. I hear they only let Fives and above do field work in there..."_

 

_"So? They're just girls. I bet I could take Midget over there, easy."_

 

_"Shhh! She's coming over!"_

 

Riho heaved a small sigh as she caught the whispers from all the way over on the other side of the gym. She wasn't trying to eavesdrop on purpose, but the mooks here simply weren't disciplined enough to shield their thoughts from her. A couple of the bigger, meaner-looking guys radiated open hostility at her, but she ignored them and unbuttoned her outer shirt. She had forgone with the jacket today, opting to wear a tank top underneath the collared shirt, and she was in the mood for a workout. The discussion earlier with Michishige had put her in a bad mood, and she didn't want to face the rest of the team in the cafeteria, so she had slipped 'next door' to the regular Psych Crime building to use their gym instead.

 

Reaching into her jeans pocket -- she wished she had thought to bring proper exercise wear -- she pulled out a scrunchy and proceeded to put her hair up into a loose ponytail. She had heard that there was a Sim room here with its own grav-generator, so she could probably input a basic combat training scenario to burn off the excess energy. When she turned towards the Sim area, a bunch of guys blocked her way.

 

"Yes? Do I know you?" Riho asked testily, her shirt folded over her arm as she stared up at the three men blocking her path.

 

"Shouldn't kids like you be in school or something?" The biggest of the three sneered at her. Riho stared back unblinkingly. Hazing, of course. She had run foul of it several times on account of her being so young, yet being cleared for active duty. Most ordinary telepaths class Three and above were discovered in their early to mid teens and sent to the Academy for training before being re-assigned to whatever specialization they chose to focus on. Some never moved past their initial power class, which was a shame of course, and they tended to resent those with stronger classifications than they did. 

 

And then there were the late bloomers, whose Abilities awakened later in life and had to be retrained and reassigned. Those guys were usually the ones who never advanced further as well, considering how they were already set in their ways by the time they were sent for training. Studies had shown that younger Ability users were more flexible in their learning capabilities, so it was important to instil the basics in them while they still had the capacity to maximise their potential. 

 

Riho was a class Seven telepath with a combat and wide area suppression focus, which made her the psychic equivalent of a tactical nuclear device, but she didn't wave that around shrimps like these. She didn't wave it around at all -- it was considered bad form to do so. Impolite, you see. Mentally marking the ox-shouldered brute as a weak Four, with his two flunkies as Threes, Riho decided they really weren't worth her time, but she would at least attempt to be polite.

 

"Would you please move? I would like to use the Sim room."

 

Ox Shoulders folded his beefy arms and glowered down at her. He was a whole head and a half taller than her, but she wasn't particularly intimidated. Unconsciously she had already shifted her weight to a ready stance, and her mental shields were always in place. Instead, she reached out with careful mental feelers, mostly just to get a gauge on what the man wanted. His shields were spotty, and she could easily pick up stray thoughts leaking through, but those thoughts were not particularly comforting. He clearly wanted to pick a fight with her, which should have been troubling given their size differences, but given the state of his mental shields, Riho was sure she could smash through them in a jiffy and knock him out before he could even touch her. It wouldn't be fair, but psychically he simply wasn't in her weight class -- an ironic statement she just had to smile at.

 

"What's so funny, brat? You think you can just waltz in with your shiny Spec Ops badge and step all over our turf?"

 

"This gym belongs to the Psych Crime Division, and Special Forces are also part of it. I see no reason why I should not be able to use it." Riho said in her most reasonable voice, knowing full well it would piss the guy off more. It did. His nostrils flared, the veins on his heavily muscled arms writhing dangerously. Riho shifted subtly into her own combat mode, her face falling into an expressionless mask, her thoughts processing only what was necessary, logging all threats and how best to neutralize them. She might be small, but she was leanly muscled and a tough cookie in her own right. She wasn't going to be caught out by these small fry. She didn't make Spec Ops for no good reason!

 

"Sayashi? Is that Sayashi? Do you remember me?"

 

A vaguely familiar voice cut into the situation smooth as butter, causing Riho to flick one eye briefly towards the source, even as she felt a wave of violent intent aimed straight at her. She sidestepped the first punch easily, but the second one was caught mid-flight by the person who had called out to her. Riho started a little in surprise.

 

"Arita? What are you doing in Tokyo?"

 

"So you  _do_  remember me! It's been years, kid. You were only a wee little thing back then." The youngish-looking man who appeared to be in his mid-20s grinned. He was not quite as tall as the man who had attempted to hit her, but he had intercepted the punch effortlessly. Riho grinned back at him.

 

"You're still wearing that stupid goatee, that's why. And don't call me little!"

 

Arita was about to reply when the man they were ignoring growled.

 

"Who the fuck are you?"

 

"Your best friend." Arita shot back carelessly. "I'm saving your stupid ass from landing in the infirmary. You really don't want to fight her, man."

 

"Oh yeah? What's that kid going to do to me? Shock me death from cuteness?" Ox Shoulders scoffed. Arita shrugged, letting the fist he was holding go and stepping back with his hands up. 

 

"Be my guest. Sayashi, please don't do anything permanent to him."

 

"Wasn't planning to. Gotta be on my best behaviour now that I'm in Spec Ops and all." Riho giggled suddenly, feeling oddly giddy from meeting an old acquaintance. She wasn't even going to hurt the man...too badly.

 

Ox Shoulders tried to grab her, but his hands went off course. Puzzled, he tried again and grabbed nothing but air. Riho continued smiling beatifically. It really helped that Arita had gotten the man off-balance like that earlier. The hint of self-doubt was something she could exploit, and now her assailant was even more confused as to why he couldn't seem to get to her. He took a step forward, then his eyes widened comically in shock when his breath cut off suddenly. He flailed, clutching at his throat uselessly as he felt  _something_  trying to crush his breath from him.

 

"Holy shit, Uemura! You're floating!" One of the flunkies shouted, pointing dramatically at the fact that Ox Shoulders, or Uemura, was drifting off the floor. A small crowd was gathering around them, and Riho cracked her jaw absently as her brow furrowed, her mind flexing as she tossed the man telekinetically backwards into his two friends. She was being fairly gentle by her standards. She could have sent him straight across to the far side of the gym had she really wanted to.

 

Arita laughed and started clapping, and a bunch of the other spectators did as well. It was not every day, even among telepaths, to see such an impressive demonstration of telekinetic control. Lifting a person like that was difficult, since entry-level telepaths could only manage small items at most. 

 

"So Ace, you still a Six?" Arita asked loudly, making sure that everyone could hear him. Riho smirked, knowing what the man intended.

 

"I passed the classification test last year. I'm a Seven now." 

 

Whispers erupted from the spectators, and the fallen Uemura had a pole-axed look on his face. He scurried backwards on his butt as fast as he could. His two friends scrambled back as well. Everyone was given her mixed looks of fear and admiration. Riho bore it remarkably well. The problem with being young and powerful was something she had lived with more than half her life.

 

Most ordinary telepaths never made it past Five, and that was with hard work put in. Natural aptitude played a part, though Riho also had the advantage of starting ridiculously young. Her Ability had surfaced when she was only six years old, saving her from certain death when the mag-lev train she had been riding with her parents derailed and crashed at full speed into a building. The searchers had found her completely untouched and unconscious outside by the wreckage, a Jump scar radiating next to her in Mindspace. She had apparently saved herself on pure instinct alone. She was adopted as a ward of the state and put into specialized training shortly afterwards. Riho had never stopped pushing herself to become even better ever since. Guilt was a powerful motivator.  _If only I had been stronger..._

 

"You trying to be the youngest 'path ever to reach class Ten?" Arita joked, pulling the girl to one side with him. The crowd parted like the Red Sea for them. Riho shrugged.

 

"Sounds like a good idea to me."

 

"Brat." 

 

"Congratulations on hitting Four, by the way. Is that why you got a transfer to the capital?"

 

Arita paused in midstep. "Are you reading my mind, Ace? Because that was just damn creepy."

 

Riho grinned. "Nope. Just guessing."

 

Arita shook his head. "Still a brat. Glad to see you doing fine though. Haven't seen you since that last mission at Matsushima. You didn't look so good when I carried you outta there."

 

Riho stopped in her tracks. "That was you? I...don't remember what happened after."

 

"Can't see how you could have. You were a gibbering mess." Arita's voice was low to avoid anyone from overhearing them. "I thought you weren't going to make it at first. First time I see you cry, and you had to be bleeding like crazy. Wouldn't stop shaking either. Scariest damn shit I ever seen. Seriously, kid, you need to stop being so damn special. It's enough to give any man a complex."

 

"Thanks." Riho said seriously. "You saved my life."

 

"You saved mine first." Arita reached over to ruffle her hair. "Don't know what exactly you did on that ship, but it's a damn good thing, whatever it was. Saved the whole team from getting screwed over. I hope Spec Ops ain't making you do crazy things like that any more though, can't take it if you actually end up killing yourself one day."

 

"Gee, old man, I didn't know you cared." Riho said gruffly, embarrassed but oddly pleased. Her chest filled with a strange mix of emotions. Rehab after Matsushima had taken her six months, and there were initial fears that she had burned herself out. It hadn't been a good time. Her mind had been all over the place, unable to focus, and they had to restrain her in a specially warded room to prevent her from accidentally hurting herself and others. Riho was fairly sure her medical files were sealed, or at least those particular ones were. She didn't really want anyone to know about that part of her life.

 

"You're a good kid. Need to stop trying to save the world on your own though. No playing hero any more, ya hear?" Arita wagged his finger at her. "If you get hurt, I'll kick your ass, class Seven or no."

 

"I hear ya." Riho smiled up at him. It had been a while since she slipped back into her old dialect, but she was comfortable enough with Arita, who acted as a big brother figure to her in her first official assignment to a unit after she graduated from the Academy at the ripe old age of 13. She reminded him of his little sister, apparently, and he often stood up for her when the older guys in the unit wanted to rag on her for being a girl genius. He was a late bloomer himself, but was one of the rare jokers who thought it was "crazy cool" to be able to do stuff with his mind. A lot of telepaths didn't adjust well awakening later in life, since most people tended to equate 'hearing voices in your head' with 'crazy', which didn't help them in getting used to their Ability.

 

Despite Ability being a known quantity in the world now, it was still amazing how most people couldn't quite adjust to telepaths, or the reality of possessing Ability at all. Then again, perhaps it wasn't so odd. People always feared what they did not understand, and despite significant breakthroughs in research in the last decade regarding Ability and its relation to the human brain, many members of the public still viewed it as an alien thing. It was doubly compounded by the fact that in Japan at least, telepaths with anything more than an ability to bend a spoon with their minds were routinely removed from their regular lives and inserted into a system where they were taught how to control and develop their Ability without abusing it. Even though telepaths in the medical profession were invaluable in providing aid where previously technology could not cover, the inherent suspicion from the normals was not something easily banished by any of the good telepaths could do. All it took was a single bad case happening, and mass hysteria wouldn't be far behind. Which reminded her of the case she was on. Damn, she had to get back soon. And maybe find something to eat before that.

 

"It's the Seiishiro case, right? You gotta go?"

 

"Now who's the one reading minds?" Riho joked, cracking a half-smile. Arita snorted.

 

"It's all over the Link. Can't even switch streams without bumping into someone commenting on how 'Ability is a menace to society' and all that trash. Norms are  _scared_ , man. And our department is working double-time with the regular force too. They still don't like us, but we buddy up with the Bubbles and save time on the interrogation when we head out to shake the usual leads up. Nothing like threatening a good ol' fashioned mind-rape and seeing hardened thugs start to cry."

 

"That's abuse of civil rights, Arita." Riho choked back a laugh. "The Bubbles let you  _do_  that?"

 

"Well, nothing wrong with a little off the record chat." He winked. "So long as we don't actually do or say anything too out of line, we're clear. The Bubbles are pretty practical about it this time since their asses are on the line too. Everyone's stressed out these days. Spec Ops have any leads yet?"

 

"A couple. Not sure where it all ties up yet, but it doesn't look good. You guys are the one doing most of the legwork huh? Thanks, one of the leads you guys chased up led to something pretty big last night. I think we might have a break from there."

 

"Good. I'm tired of doing double shifts. Oh hey, ain't that one of your lot?"

 

Riho turned to where Arita was pointing, and immediately spotted Eripon and her flamboyant outfit of the day. Only in Spec Ops would she get away with what she wore on a regular basis, though Riho was convinced that only Eripon could pull off a leopard print outfit without looking completely tacky.

 

"Riho! There you are! Mizuki and Kanon-chan were worried about you." Eripon scolded as she approached, then eyed Arita speculatively. "And since when did you find a boyfriend?

 

"Whoa, I'm not a lolicon, yo. Sayashi here is like my kid sis. We were in the same unit way back. Arita Yakushi, at your service. Class Four, empath focus."

 

"Ikuta Erina, Spec Ops. Class Five chameleon." Arita's eyebrows shot up at the specialization. It wasn't the official term, of course, but it was pretty much the semi-official vernacular for it. It was pretty ironic, considering Eripon's tendency to dress in a striking style, but her Ability focus allowed her to blend in almost effortlessly into any group she chose. It was a combination of passive-reading and perception-shifting, as well as natural talent. Eripon was their infiltration and information-gathering expert in Spec Ops, and Riho knew that it wasn't by luck or chance that Eripon was the one to find her. Granted, Riho hadn't been  _actively_  trying to hide when she made her way to the gym, but she  _had_  taken care to remain low-profile. Eripon was just that good at teasing out information of people, whether or not they were consciously aware of it. She would have made a good Intel person, Riho mused.

 

"Here, Riho. Kanon-chan said you'd be starving." Eripon shoved a  _yakisoba_  bread into her startled colleague's hands. "That should keep that bottomless hole you call a stomach quiet until we meet up with the rest. Don't say we don't feed you."

 

"Ikuta, is it? I like your style. Take care of my kid sis, ya?" Arita flicked a finger at Riho's forehead, making the ace snort and wrinkle her nose at her pseudo big brother. "She's a bit of a stuffed shirt sometimes, but she's a good kid."

 

"I know, I went to the Academy with her. She took herself way too seriously then. Still does, now that I think about it." 

 

"Hey, I'm still here you know!" Riho squeaked indignantly in between stuffing her face with the bread. "Quit picking on me!"

 

Eripon laughed and looped an arm over the shorter girl's neck, ruffling her hair playfully as Riho protested being treated like a kid, huffing with mock annoyance after she had all but inhaled the bread she was given. 

 

"Someone's gotta keep you in line, Miss Class Seven. Otherwise all that hot air might make you burst from the inside." Eripon teased, poking one of Riho's puffed up cheeks. Arita howled with laughter at the maligned expression on Riho's face.

 

"You're all mean." Riho grumbled. Eripon grinned. 

 

"Come on Riho, let's get back. We've got what, 10 minutes left before the meeting? Let's see how much you can eat in 5. Don't you dare stop at less than 10, I've got a bet going with Mizuki."

 

"Oi! I don't eat that much!"

 

"Oh yes you do." Arita and Eripon glanced at each other as their voices overlapped, identical smirks sprouting on their faces. The two new acquaintances high-fived in triumph as Riho buried her face in one palm. 

 

Friends. What would she do with them?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- Yakisoba is a kind of Japanese fried noodle. It is sometimes served in bread, doubling as a kind of stuffing. It's good! :D Commonly available at convenience stores in Japan.
> 
> \- Matsushima refers to a group of islands off Miyagi Prefecture in Japan. Matsu means "pine", and the 260 little islands that make up Matsushima are covered with pines. It is one of the more celebrated scenic sights in Japan.


	5. Take Me Higher

 

 

"Something doesn't add up, you know."

 

Kanon said half to herself while she browsed through the case files. The meeting had finally ended with little to go on, and Captain Michishige had dismissed them all after assigning them to follow up on the leads they had been responsible for since the start. Some of the team members opted to linger around for a bit, sorting through their notes and making plans on what to do next. Maa-chan had already vanished with Haruka in tow though, and Sayumi had also stalked off to her next meeting with her own superiors. None of her operatives envied her for her job. It was hard enough having to justify having picked an all-female elite force, though it did make for a great photo-op and often had the rest of Psych Crime muttering "publicity stunt" behind their backs. The pressure to deliver was really coming down hard on them, and no one wanted to fail.

 

"What doesn't?" Mizuki asked distractedly after a moment, tapping on her datapad. "And ugh, I think I need to drop by the morgue again." 

 

"Riho-chan, Suspect A was a telepath right?" Kanon turned to her best friend, who appeared to be half-dozing with her notes spread out in front of her. The ace opened one eye lazily.

 

"Yeah. Weak though, probably unregistered." Riho turned to Mizuki. "Fuku-chan, are you going to the morgue to identify the guy?"

 

"That's one of the reasons. I'm also pressing the lab guys for their bloodwork report on both suspects. Ayumi-chan, can you go harass them for me?"

 

"Sure. Anything else you need done?"

 

"I'll let you know after my date at the morgue." Mizuki said airily, tucking her file under an arm. Eripon rose after her.

 

"Need a ride, Mizuki? I'm headed out to Kabuki-cho, but I can drop you off before that."

 

"Slumming again, Eripon?" Riho teased. The infiltration expert rolled her eyes.

 

"I'm  _working_ , Riho. You think I like hanging out with yakuza?"

 

"Well, you seemed to be enjoying yourself in that hostess club the last time I checked in on you." Riho smirked as Eripon coloured slightly. Both Mizuki and Ayumi shot her bemused looks.

 

"This is revenge for the boyfriend comment, right?" Eripon glared at the unrepentant ace, who only shrugged.

 

"What boyfriend comment?" Mizuki looked interested. Riho twitched.

 

"Shouldn't you guys get going?"

 

"Oh Riho, maybe you should drop by that hostess club you crashed the last time. The girls there thought you were cute!" Eripon called over her shoulder as she left the room with Mizuki. Riho groaned, slapping her forehead with one hand. Both Ayumi and Kanon enjoyed a laugh at her expense, though Kanon quickly jumped back onto her derailed train of thought.

 

"I can't be sure about this, but I think all the current logged victims of Crash have been ordinaries? I looked through all the autopsy reports, but it's really hard to tell since the usual part of the brain we cross-check for Ability are the exact parts that get destroyed by that drug. If it even is the drug at work..." 

 

Ayumi frowned from her side of the table. "Yeah, Michishige-san raised the possibility of it being really a Psych killer, and that the drugs were just something else..."

 

"Not if what I went through was any indication." Riho pointed out. "I clearly marked the guy for a class Two when I went to check out the place suggested by one of our earlier leads. The power spike happened sometime in Shibuya where I nearly lost him, and they did find an empty syringe in his pocket afterwards...the drugs might not be what killed him, but it definitely did  _something._ "

 

"Do you think Crash actually boosts Ability though?" Ayumi leaned forward, eyes sparkling with interest. Riho looked away, tapping distractedly on her folder with a pen.

 

"I think so. I'm not sure how, but from what I experienced...a synch can't boost Ability by that much of a factor. Group synchs are notoriously unstable, and it doesn't make that much of a difference in terms of a boost. But until we can get a sample of Crash to test, we can't be sure."

 

"Guys, are you listening to me?" Kanon cut in impatiently. Both Ayumi and Riho shut up.

 

"Sorry, Suzuki-san." 

 

"Sorry, Kanon-chan."

 

Kanon folded her arms and leaned forward on the table, frowning in concentration. "I'm still working on this in my head, so bear with me for a bit. I didn't think about it in the meeting earlier, but it just occurred to me: what are the odds of all those Crash victims being 'paths, however weak they might be? We have over two dozen victims already, even discounting the Seiishiro incident. There aren't that many of us in the world, much less in Japan, and the odds of this many rogues gathering in Tokyo? Slim to none."

 

"That's why you asked me if I was sure that Suspect A was a 'path huh? Think Crash might be able to induce Ability in ordinaries?" Riho speculated, stretching out in her seat.

 

"Like you said, Riho-chan, we've ain't got nothing unless you get a sample of Crash to run tests on. But well, I don't think all our Crash victims have been unregistered 'paths. Too much of a coincidence. Some of them, I might believe. But not all."

 

"What about the damage in the autopsy reports?" Ayumi piped up. "Burn-out of that kind is definitely a result of Psych activity. Unless we've really got a Psycho killer on the loose." She giggled at her lame pun, though both Kanon and Riho just raised an eyebrow at it. "Sorry."

 

"The intensity of the damage isn't all the same on all the reports, really. Scarring vs complete burn-out." Riho worried at her lip as she leafed through the scans again. "Maybe I'll run down to the database and request the list of children tested positive for potential Ability in the last 20 years. Match it against the registered list of telepaths. Maybe the unregistered ones will show up in between, and if some of those names appear in our victims list, we'll be able to see if your hunch is right."

 

"Good idea, Riho-chan. I think I need to go talk with Dr. Yajima again. She was the one handling the Seiishiro twelve, and I'm hoping she might see a different angle from a medical point of view." Kanon got up and gathered up her file, making a beeline for the door. That left Riho and Ayumi alone in the room.

 

"Sayashi-san, do you need any help with the database later? I don't really have anything to go on after the lab errand..." Ayumi began tentatively. Truth to be told, she was always a little intimidated by Riho's cool stance to anyone else apart from her closest friends. It probably did not help that Riho often ignored her except in the line of work itself. It took a lot of courage on her part to even try talking to her senior. She might be the older one, but in terms of field experience, Riho had a few years on her.

 

"Not particularly. You could go check if Kanon-chan needs any help though. I have a feeling she's going to be knee-deep in medical reports later. She'll probably appreciate the rescue." Riho stretched again before casually stuffing her papers into the file and making her way out of the door. She did not bother acknowledging Ayumi beyond that, but it was behaviour Ayumi was getting used to. The older girl was starting to think that Sayashi-san didn't really think much of her. Ayumi set her shoulders. Well, she would have to work harder to make sure that her senior acknowledged her!

 

~*~*~

 

The Council arrayed themselves in a semi-circle around her, as if she were sitting in judgement before them. The room was gun-metal grey, with featureless walls on all sides. The entrance from which she had come in through had sealed seamlessly into the wall behind her, essentially trapping her in with them.

 

Michishige Sayumi did not even bat an eyelash under the scrutiny. There was no one there that could unsettle her enough to give anything away. In any case, the ten councillors there had no Ability whatsoever, and had they been physically present,  _she_  would have been the one in control. Which was probably why only their projections were in attendance through a secure uplink. Safe in their own offices around the country, they could interrogate her with no fear of her Ability influencing them. Sayumi hid a mocking smile. Paranoia over telepathic manipulation was so rampant that people tended to forget that manipulation was originally possible even without it. All the better for her though. That way she could do whatever she needed to while being underestimated. First rule of Black Ops: never show your true hand.

 

_"Michishige. Report."_

 

The choral nature of the mechanized voice was jarring no matter how many times she had heard it before. Artificially rendered to defy easy voice recognition, the avatars of the council members were gender neutral and deliberately inhuman. They stared at her, expressionless, betraying nothing as they were programmed to do. It was almost criminally basic, the avatar program they were using, a far cry from the hyper-realistic simulations modern technology was capable of, but the flat chrome interface was correctly adjudged to be far more intimidating than the human models the latest tech preferred.

 

"There is a high possibility of Psych involvement in the serial deaths. Initial profiling suggests a singular guiding principle, either that of a single mastermind or that of a syndicate. More data required for pattern analysis..."

 

_"Irrelevant. Tell us about the team."_

 

Sayumi kept her face straight. She had been waiting for the question. The booming question could not be pinpointed to originate from any one of the councillors, but she had an inkling of who it could be. Even without the true voice sample, the way the sentence was constructed betrayed a personality more surely than most people thought. Sayumi was fully trained in criminal profiling, and she knew that it was likely that qualification alone that had landed her in her current job.

 

"They are coming together to work as a cohesive unit. The ones who have prior experience together have a better dynamic, which is to be expected."

 

_"Are any of them flight risks?"_

 

Sayumi stared straight ahead, focusing on the tiny red dot at the angle between wall and ceiling at the far side of the room. She knew who the question was truly directed at.

 

"Ikuta has stabilized with the presence of Fukumura and Sayashi on the team. They do not know of her going rogue previously, though Suzuki suspects something. Her connections are useful and I will continue to monitor her actions."

 

It was always difficult wearing more than one hat, Sayumi reflected. Ikuta was placed in a difficult position as she was now, and it was likely that she would never be fully trusted by those who sought to use her. Life in the shadows was difficult, and power meant little when you could not aim it at the right person. An enemy could be your dearest friend at the right time, and your friend could be your worst enemy even when they meant well. Ikuta was a wild card, capable of going rogue and vanishing anytime she chose. She had done so once before, and there was no guarantee she would not do it again.

 

Sayumi was sure she could manage the girl though. Everyone had weaknesses. A wolf once lost out in the cold would treasure more the warmth of a pack, and it had been a happy coincidence that her potential candidates had been batch-mates with her at the Academy. Ikuta would not betray them, she was certain. Fukumura had been the surprise factor in this case, but Sayumi was never one to let go of any wild cards once she had stumbled upon them.

 

_"And your problem cases?"_

 

A different questioner this time. Sayumi reorganized her thoughts. She had more than one of those, which wasn't unusual. She had deliberately picked those who had the most complicated disciplinary records after all. That they were also correspondingly talented was a convenient bonus.

 

"Kudou has not gotten into any fights since after the first week. Giving her greater responsibility has settled her. She still gets restless, but Satou's presence has mitigated that to a degree."

 

_"There are no more incidents like that with the cat, I presume."_

 

Sayumi pressed her lips together to stop her smile. She had read Satou's files. It had taken her a week to get through every single logged incident that had occurred over a two-year period. It took a special kind of talent to conduct experiments on that level of ingenuity. The incident with the cat had involved a modified AR unit, components from a dismantled food processor, and the receiver from a comms set. Till today no one was actually sure what Satou had been trying to do. Her attempt to explain had been terribly garbled, involving seaweed and elaborate colour coding at some point, but by then no one had been able to keep up with her and she had been shipped off into isolation until one of Sayumi's colleagues had picked her up on a whim. Enforcers worked alone, but they could commandeer resources as they saw fit. Since there were so few of them and they all had specialized skillsets, they occasionally picked up local support when they needed to. Satou had managed to redeem herself on that random mission. Wrecking havoc on a Alpha-level National Security system with only a basic cyberdeck and slipping in an unknown virus of her own creation had been impressive work. Naturally, the case had been so classified that it would have been beyond Sayumi's security clearance, but having the right kind of friends helped.

 

"Negative. Ishida and Iikubo are able to rein her in, and she has also shown great affinity for Kudou and Sayashi..."

 

Sayumi decided to leave out the fact that she suspected that Sayashi was Satou's latest project. The girl genius seemed utterly fascinated by the fact that Sayashi's presence could shortcircuit her beloved machines. A gifted technomancer, Satou seemed to have an innate understanding of machines and how to work with them. Instead of the usual telepath's dissonance with machines, technomancers were specially attuned to the digital instead, at the cost of human telepathy. Satou could not read minds or even skim for intentions the way the rest of them could, but she was also peculiarly unreadable herself. Even Sayumi had found her to be completely incomprehensible when she tried. While normally a technomancer would be railroaded into a research-based career whether they liked it or not, Satou had proved to be too intractable until Sayumi had plucked her out of the system. Whilst the kid genius had yet to prove herself to be of immediate practical use, Sayumi figured that an elite unit would eventually have use for a gifted hacker at some point.

 

_"Tell us more about the broken Ace."_

 

Sayumi steeled herself and prepared to lie. Well, not so much lie as tell them what they expected to hear.

 

"Sayashi is adapting well to the unit, especially with the presence of Suzuki and Ikuta to steady her. She is professionally committed and an asset to the team..."

 

_"Do you believe she is ready for Enforcer status?"_

 

The main question, of course. If Sayumi had been a good lapdog, she would have said yes. For indeed, Sayashi had the skill and power to join those shadowy ranks. But being an Enforcer was more than just having the appropriate Ability level. Sayashi was assessed a year ago during her classification exams. Control, power, technique; all passed with flying colours. She could have been recruited into the Enforcers there and then, having been partnered by one following her return to active duty after her extended medical leave. It had been her own mentor who had disqualified her however, without the girl herself knowing, from joining the ranks of the elite. After working with Sayashi these last few weeks, Sayumi was beginning to see why her beloved senior had disqualified the girl -- and in the process, earned her the secret nickname: The Broken Ace.

 

"Sayashi is not ready."  _Lie._  "I believe she would benefit more from being in a team setting."  _Truth._ "She has not fully recovered from the accident."  _Semi-lie, Sayumi wasn't sure what exactly Sayashi has to recover from._  "I will continue to monitor her progress and report any irregularities." _  
_

 

Sayumi had her own ulterior motives for keeping Sayashi with her, most of which was even for the girl's own good. Tell the truth, and she would be sending Sayashi straight towards a complete breakdown within a few years. Tell the whole truth, and she would lose Sayashi right now, forever. Her taskmasters would hardly be assured by the knowledge that their broken Ace was hovering dangerously close to sociopathy. Others had been put down for lesser reasons. If a weapon could not be tamed for safe use, it would be discarded. Sayumi did not want to give up on the girl. Psychotherapy was not a widely explored field in Japan, and it wouldn't work on Sayashi anyway. She had to  _want_  to be helped, but Sayashi certainly did not see it that way. Sayumi could only hope that holding her within a stable environment with familiar faces would help to open the Ace up sufficiently for her to work on the girl properly. It would be a waste to break someone so talented.

 

There were the usual questions about the rest of her team, but Sayumi deflected those with generic answers, laced with enough juicy tidbits to keep them off her back. Ishida and Fukumura had been the most ordinary out of the Spec Ops recruits (who were mostly delinquents and oddballs), and Sayumi had only picked them more in relation to the effect she believed they would have on the team rather than for their individual qualities. It had been a hard fight to pull Suzuki and Iikubo in, since they had barely made the Ability grade for qualification, but Sayumi managed to justify Suzuki in relation to Sayashi, as well as the overall calming effect the girl had on the whole team. Iikubo might have been weak, but her specialization was interesting enough. Having someone who was a complete natural at aural profiling made for easy interrogations on even the most hardcore cases whenever Ikuta and Iikubo paired up for those. Add an innate sensitivity that bordered on perpetual low level pre-cog, and there was a reason why Sayumi often stuck Iikubo out on receptionist slash watch duty. No one would be able to slip past the woman if they had no right to be there, and even if said interloper could overpower Iikubo, it would not be before the girl had gotten in touch with one of her stronger team-mates. 

 

All in all, Sayumi had been pleased with her choices for Psych Special Forces. They were a mixed bunch, but this was her first major unit command, and she truly wanted to make something out of it. The machinations that had placed her here had been beyond her control, but Sayumi would make the most out of the opportunity. She might well be a pawn, but even a pawn could progress far enough to be promoted to a queen. But first she had to  _get_  there of course.

 

And the first step was to solve this pesky little case. She might have to call in some big guns eventually to end it quickly, but she would place some faith in her fledgling team right now. Shielding them from external pressures was going to take all of her people skills, but she was sure they would be up to task. It was a matter of pride for them all. They might be an all-female unit in a patriarchal society, but Sayumi was going to rub it in their faces that they could do better than any other combination out there. She had a point to prove, and it all started here.

 

_I won't lose! Just you wait!_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the long delay in updating. Death in the family.
> 
> \- Kabuki-cho: the red-light district


End file.
